White Paper

Reference: WP-CAD-00145 July 2013

Guide by Andy Davis

Page 1 of 4

Aligning Piping Fittings in AutoCAD Plant 3D

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2014
When inserting pipe run components into a pipe, AutoCAD Plant 3D will align the fittings along the pipe axis, ensuring that they
are orthogonal to the pipe. However, there are occasions when the fittings are required to be fitted so that they are aligned in
the vertical and horizontal planes of the world UCS when inserted into sloping pipe. To accomplish this, the fittings cannot be
placed directly into the pipe.

To insert Fittings into a sloping Pipe to align with World UCS

This White Paper describes a method to insert fittings into a sloping pipe and align them to the world UCS.
In the following example, a flange set will be inserted at the mid-point of the near vertical pipe shown below. The pipe slopes in
both the XZ and YZ planes, the flange set is to be inserted so that it is aligned with the Z-axis.

If the flange set was simply placed into the existing pipe, it would be aligned along the pipe axis. To prevent this, it must be
placed and orientated in space before it is connected to the pipe.
In this example, the near-vertical pipe is deleted from the model and a temporary construction line inserted to join the node
points of the two elbows. The flange set is then inserted into the model at the mid-point of the line and oriented correctly with
along the Z-axis in the XY plane.

www.cadline.co.uk

01784 419 922

sales@cadline.co.uk

White Paper
Reference: WP-CAD-00145 July 2013
Guide by Andy Davis

Page 2 of 4

Having placed the flange set, it is not possible to connect the elbows directly to the flange as the autorouting will not allow both
ends to be connected when neither is orthogonal to the original pipe axis.
To work around this, construction lines are created to provide endpoints that are midway between the nodes on the elbows and
the nodes on the weldneck ends of the flanges.
Pipe is then routed from an elbow to the endpoint of the construction line and then from the corresponding flange to the node
on the open end of the pipe routed from the elbow.

www.cadline.co.uk

01784 419 922

sales@cadline.co.uk

White Paper
Reference: WP-CAD-00145 July 2013
Guide by Andy Davis

Page 3 of 4

To do this, tolerance needs to be enabled on the routing compass and the correct routing plane selected to prevent a fitting
being placed directly at the elbow. It may also be necessary to turn off the routing compass. If the pipe connections are outside
of the default tolerance (3 degrees and 0.1 mm for a Buttweld joint), these values can be increased in the
DefaultConnectorsConfig file for the project.
The procedure is repeated for each elbow to flange connection.

As the connections are made, Plant will produce a warning message to indicate that it may have to cutback elbows to make the
connection, this can be ignored. The connections will be made correctly.

www.cadline.co.uk

01784 419 922

sales@cadline.co.uk

White Paper
Reference: WP-CAD-00145 July 2013
Guide by Andy Davis

Page 4 of 4

The resulting piperun is shown below.

www.cadline.co.uk

01784 419 922

sales@cadline.co.uk